back to article Jailed Facebook hack Brit targeted Justin Bieber's girlfriend

A British man jailed for a year after hacking into a private Facebook account targeted Justin Bieber's actress-turned-singer girlfriend, it has emerged. Gareth Crosskey, 21, of Lancing in West Sussex, was sentenced to 12 months behind bars by London's Southwark Crown Court last week. Crosskey had pleaded guilty to two …

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  1. Jediben
    FAIL

    He may be a conniving little douche...

    But FB's security is patently inadequate. Setting up an email address that is SIMILAR allowed him to request a reset? Do they have myopic monkeys handling customer services?

    1. Jediben

      Re: He may be a conniving little douche...

      Of course I use 'similar' in the modern social respect of 'being somewhat alike' and not the mathematic 'exactly the same' sense.

  2. TrishaD

    Hence the draconian-appearing 12 month sentence.

    So in this case, it's less 'Caped Crusader revealing Facebook security weaknesses' and rather more 'Nasty little shit out to get Justin Bieber.'

    Which seems a bit like bullying kittens - perfectly feasible, but you wonder why someone'd bother.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Bullying kittens- evil

      Bullying Bieber- lulzy as f*ck

  3. Cosmo
    Thumb Down

    Script Kiddie burger flipper

    Ahhh yes, it was obvious from the initial report that he must have targeted someone worthy of response if the FBI got involved.

    Using social engineering to trick Facebook is fair enough, but posting YouTube videos, boasting on hacker forums, approaching the paparazzi and attempting blackmail are pretty damn low things to do.

    Jail time for you, you burger flipper

  4. LinkOfHyrule
    Paris Hilton

    "She had a Facebook account on which she has 6 million friends,"

    Fook me! That's a lot of "friends" she must be the loveliest lady in the whole wide world.

    Joking aside I have never heard of her - I take it she's a new version of Paris or something? No idea what a Bieber is either which is probably lucky. Sounds rather nasty like it causes a rash or something!

    This hacker bloke sounds like a right twat too I would like to add - seriously dude, you aint got the clout to get away with hacking, who do you think you are Murdoch or something!

    1. Jediben
      Big Brother

      Re: "She had a Facebook account on which she has 6 million friends,"

      And there in lies the rub - 6 million friends is a hell of a lot of advertising clout on FB. The potential damage this kid could have done to the advertisers would probably be trumped up to around $6 billion easily. So maybe it's not even the fact that Bieber's beau was affected that got him the year long stetch, but rather all those poor businesses that are paying to use Ms Gomez as a posterchild.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "Joking aside I have never heard of her"

      If only someone were to create some sort of facility by which one could interrogate a global database of information and avoid such distressing episodes of proclaiming ignorance in public

      1. LinkOfHyrule
        FAIL

        Re: "Joking aside I have never heard of her"

        If only I actually gave a shit who she was!

    3. jonathanb Silver badge

      Re: "She had a Facebook account on which she has 6 million friends,"

      If you have a teenage daughter, she will explain to you that Justin Beiber is The Most Desirable Man In The Whole Wide World. Certainly, anywhere he goes, there are thousands of young girls trying to get a glimpse of him. Selene Gomez, as his girlfriend, is The Luckiest Woman In The Whole Wide World to be picked out of the millions of girls he could choose from. She's far too young for me, but certainly not ugly.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "She had a Facebook account on which she has 6 million friends,"

      A Bieber is a Beaver with no teeth.

      anonymous 'cause I dig the mask

  5. Citizen Kaned

    "Justin Bieber Sucks"

    well, at least not slander then!

    12 months for this is a disgrace.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      !!! Justin Bieber Zucks !!!

      So ... the truth is no defense against a libel suit ?

      [ Farcebook is NOT your friend! ]

  6. min

    no one...

    ...should get a year in the clink for stating facts.

  7. adam payne

    I knew is was a celeb or something like that. The FBI don't get involved for just one account.

    1. BrownishMonstr

      unless...they're British?

  8. Tim #3

    This sentence seems utterly disproportional. Surely a bit of community service or something would've been enough, instead of what it is going to cost us taxpayers to imprison him for a year.

  9. CABVolunteer

    Hmm, this offence sounds familiar, but with a different outcome...

    "The breach was reported to the FBI who turned over the investigation to Scotland Yard's Police Central e-Crime Unit after tracing the hack to the UK."

    So here we have a Brit who hacks into a US computer system from the UK. Sound familiar?

    But in this case, he's tried in the UK. Why didn't the FBI activate extradition?

    PS: I can understand why 'OK' and 'Hollywood Life' magazines wouldn't cough up for these "personal emails" - not even a lovestruck teenager would consider typing any intimate message that her step-father could get access to!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hmm, this offence sounds familiar, but with a different outcome...

      >But in this case, he's tried in the UK. Why didn't the FBI activate extradition?

      ...perhaps because didn't hack US Gov & Mil servers and leave messages citing US foreign policy as his motivation for ingress?

  10. paulc
    WTF?

    Hacking? What hacking...

    There was no hacking into Facebook involved at all... merely a social engineering type attack...

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "gerbil-faced", excellent stuff

    although "Mr Teefey" sounds like another pseudonym for him

  12. LeetSamurai
    Alert

    Hack attack

    Why does hackersforum.net redirect to Arabs.com? =)

  13. Steve Evans

    Ahhh...

    That explains how the FBI got involved over a single facebook account hack... A celebrity was involved.

    *yawn*

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hack and go to prison

    Farcebook is for fools and this hacker proves it.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh dear, the McKinnon strawman has reared its head.

    Here's why no one wants to extradite this little goblin and they want to extradite McKinnon: This guy hacked one social networking account belonging to a private citizen (although admittedly possibly caused financial repercussions with his Justin Bieber Sucks comment). He was also an imbecile. On the other hand, McKinnon owned multiple servers belonging to the United States military and government.

    Note that I have made no comment on McKinnon and actually, I do hope he can serve his sentence somewhere better than here or the States, neither of which have prison conditions which I would consider humane.

    "Hacking" needs to stop being a catch-all term for any kind of unauthorized access to anything related to a computer. I'd like to add that while this guy is a filthy scrub gimp with absolutely no talent nor a sense of swagger, his crime does not merit a year in prison. When you give computer criminals disproportionate sentences in a prison system designed for punishment as opposed to rehabilitation, you just create Iceman/Max Butler.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      One way ticket

      When you decide to hack you buy yourself a one-way ticket to paradise at the Iron Bar Hotel. Fools rush in.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And in other Bieber NEWS...

    ....ahhh

    Sorry, I just lost the will to live.

  17. TrishaD

    Disproportionate?

    Well ,,,, I dont know.

    It's one thing to carry out a bit of social engineering just for the lulz so that you can get into your mate's account and post a photo of your bum (or whatever it is that young men do these days), and another to get into the account of someone you dont know, post an offensive message, and threaten to make all their private emails public.

    One is plain silly and the other falls into the category of 'cyber-buillying', regardless of whether your victim's associated with a Celeb or not.

    1. Old Handle

      Re: Disproportionate?

      I somewhat agree. I mean I have no illusion that this case would have been dealt with as swiftly and harshly if the target were a random schmuck like me, but it wasn't innocent "to see if I can" hacking, or even a simple "for the lulz" kind of prank. It sounds like there may have even been a financial motivation.

      Still, a year seems excessive. But I think most sentences are really.

  18. Eponymous Bastard

    Why is Justin Bieber

    and why does anyone care?

    1. MrZoolook
      Thumb Up

      Re: Why is Justin Bieber alive?

      * Fixed

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Who is Justin Bieber?

    Is he some celeb or porn star?

  20. Qu Dawei
    Meh

    his future?

    From what this guy did, has had happened, and was stated he was planning to do, it seems that he has gone from burger-flipping to doing time, and afterwards, even burger-flipping may no longer be an option.... As for a degree course on something to do with programming computer games, I guess it's bye bye to that. He couldn't even get the ex post facto excuse convincing, in my opinion.

  21. MrZoolook
    Thumb Down

    I thought you said HACKED...

    Quote: The takeover of the account was carried out after Crosskey successfully posed as her step-father, tricking Facebook into granting him illicit access to Gomez's account in the process.

    Clearly, there was no hacking involved!

    In other news...

    Reg article sensationalises headline. Ignorance or just an attempt to garner readers to an otherwise insanely boring news story! Special report after these important messages from our sponsor!

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